Writer Laurent Chani reflects on the future, between rockets, robots, and artificial intelligence | Author Laurent Chani reflects on the future, between rockets, robots, and artificial intelligence

Since my most young age, I was shaped by the taste for precision and the realism. In my eyes, theapproximation never had its place, neither in my daily, nor in my writing, nor even in any form of creation that I undertook during my life.

The same goes for the technology. Having spent several decades to design computer code, I know how unbearable it is to leave a unfinished work, sown witherrors — these famous bugs that we fear so much in our jargon. And that's without counting the side effects, unwanted effects that impact areas of code you haven't touched. It's like the side effects of medications that we would rather do without and which are unwanted consequences of the primary function of the treatment.

I like the job well done, and therequirement that requires thescience fiction universe and of theanticipation imposes a certain rigor : you have to know what you're talking about. Not that it's necessary to master each technical detail, but it is appropriate to understand at least the foundations. This approach is all the more natural to me since I received a scientific training. S'inform, assimilate the bases of a subject before deploying it in a history, is for me a essential step.

So, in my romantic universe, I integrated the notion of micro nuclear power plants, these PRM — Small Modular Reactors — capable of producing a few dozen megawatts, enough to power a small town or a entire neighborhood ofagglomeration. Some models are even designed to be transported in forty-foot containers, which can be moved by truck. So I studied their functioning, in a way that is certainly true summary, but sufficient for serve my story. It's a technology in full boom, which today arouses thegrowing interest of the nations mastering the atom, both the needs are immense and the market outlook considerable.

Other example of concept addressed in my first novel : there electricity production by gravitation. This principle, well known to country equipped with hydroelectric power plants, consists of exploiting thealtitude and the water force. When we have lakes located in height, we can channel their content by immense pipes towards turbines which produceenergy. And if, in addition, the country benefits from a constant energy source but punctually surplus, it becomes possible to pump this water and bring it back to its original tank, stored in artificial lakes lower in the valley. This back-and-forth system, exploiting theweightlessness, offers a remarkable performance which can reach almost 80 %.

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